Discursive Essay on Labeling Theory and Criminal Behavior

This assignment is a review of the five articles given. In this assignment, topic on “Labeling Theory” will discussed first. The topic on “The Normal and Pathological”, “The Social Construction of Crime”, “The Reach of the Law: Sin, Crime and Poor Taste and Culture”, “Crime and Cultural Criminology” will also be discussed respectively.

For the Labeling Theory discussed by Howard S. Becker, it stated that deviance is the violation of some agreed-upon rule. The Labeling Theory focuses on society reaction to the deviant behavior rather than the behavior itself. In other words, in any particular act, no behavior itself is deviant, unless a group, usually a group with power over others, defines the behavior as deviant. The extent to which an act is seen as deviant depends on who committed it and who thinks he has been harmed by it. Deviance exist only when it is created by society. Thus, some group or culture consider a behavior negatively deviant but some others not. This is clear that deviant is associated with self-fulfilling prophecy and stereotyping. For example, when people is responsible for the death of another person, when they are labeled as murderer or killer, the reaction to death sometimes depends on the circumstances the person responsible is located, depending on the reason whether murder or self-defense or an accident. The degree of response to a particular behavior as deviant varies over time. People labeled a behavior as deviant before, may not be deviant as now. Some rules are enforced only when certain consequences arise. Being labeled as deviant has important consequences on a person’s future social participation and self-image due to it is difficult to remove the label. Some people who labeled as deviant develop a stigma. Someone who has been stigmatize usually has lower self-esteem and may even behave more deviant to fulfill the expectations of the label. Labeling theory has analyzing the impact of assuming a deviant identity let us make use of Hughes’ distinction between master and auxiliary traits. Even the interaction process of label is emphasized, but the process or the origins that bring to deviant behavior is not discussed. Socialization, attitudes difference, opportunities, social structures and economic structures may include in the process of impact the behavior. The labeling theory is also not clearly explain that whether labeling can increase deviant behavior. If the labeling is so simple and straightforward, the effect should be more uniform, Not only does it always have negative impact or consequences, but the consequences should only occur as a result of labeling.

Each society has different criminal acts, reflecting the different values of each society. The normal and pathological developed by Emile Durkheim has discuss the inevitability of deviance in all societies. Emile Durkheim argued that deviance is normal but not pathological. This is because there is no society that is does not face the problem of crime, no society can function without crime. Thus, crime is considered to be normal part of society because crime is inevitable and will always exist. To make crime a form of social morbidity is to admit that the incidence is not accidental, on the contrary, in some cases, it arises from the basic composition of living organisms. Crime will not disappear, but it will only change its form. For example, in order for the murderers to disappear, the terror of bloodshed must be increased among the social strata that recruit murderers, but, first of all, it must become greater in society as a whole. What is a crime or deviance now, may not have been a crime in the past. The Pathological will only happen when the rate of crime becomes unusually high.

According to Emile Durkheim, deviance is serving a positive function to benefit the society and is also an indicator of a healthy society. For example, the deviance or crime helps to reaffirms the society’s shared rules, reinforces social solidarity. Publicised legal proceedings help to remind society of the boundaries between the right and wrong. In order for the rule to be worth anything, there have to be people on both sides of it, the rule keepers and the rule breakers. A society needs a manageable amount of deviance to achieve the maximum benefit. Breaking the law helps to prepare the way for change and acts as a beacon of light that helps us to shape new collective sentiments. Crime at a tolerable level is not pathological at all. Numbers of people declared deviant by current society has change its moral standard in order to maintain the level of deviance within the best range. I personally agree with Emile Durkheim’s idea on the topic of deviance and crime, the crime is functional to the society, it give the society a change of rules thus reinforce the solidarity and it also give the job opportunity to the society such as police, lawyer, judges and others. It can be imagine that people depend on crime for their livelihood will lost their job if there is no crime, but this will never happen. Despite this, Emile Durkheim had never explain just how much deviant is required for a society to function and the differences between the types of crime which some behavior is more harmful than others.

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In the concept of social construction discussed by the Stuart Henry, it stated that if humans define a situations as real, then they are real in their consequence. From the point of view of social constructivism, crime refers to a classification of behavior defined by individuals who have the power and authority, is rooted in interaction, which make laws that characterize certain behaviors as offensive and punish their perpetrators. Thus, deviance and crime is thus a manifestations of unequal social power. Since a behavior as deviant or crime is through the process of social construction, the same behavior may be defined as crime in a society but another may not. It also varies over time. For example, homosexuality was a crime in crime before 2019, but it is not now.

A British sociologist Stanley Cohen had focused the concept of moral panic on the topic of crime. Moral panic is usually work of the moral entrepreneurs and mass media. Media is the main role in arise the concern, anxiety, fear and panic of the society. The news media played its role by publishing news about threats and continuing to report, setting the agenda for how to discuss threats and attaching visual symbol images to them. For example, issues of drug in 1980’s were very important from a media standpoint. Television shows during that heavily focused on the themes of drug, especially the concern about the use of crack cocaine in the lower classes of black people in cities, when talking about the topics of crime. The attention of the public to the news report on this topic was generated. According to Stanley Cohen, he said that moral panic is a condition, event, the appearance of an individual or group which defined as a threat to social values and interests. There are few examples of moral panic, such as the belief of the widespread abduction of children by predatory Hebrews or paedophiles, the belief of the evil cults’ ritual abuse of women and children. I agree with the idea of Stanley Cohen which state that media is the main role in generating the moral panic. As the media is becoming important in our daily life, people nowadays are surround with the media. This media can simply increasing society or public awareness of the collection of information and also people’s attitudes toward certain issues. However, the idea of this social constructionism neglected the effect or the dedication of nature science or phenomenon. It specifically denies the impact of biology on behavior and culture, and suggest that biology is not essential for understanding human behavior.

“The Reach of the Law: Sin, Crime and Poor Taste” by Alexander Smith and Harriet Pollack study the various characteristics of the deviation field which examines the unacceptable behavior in this society. Deviance conduct can be divided into three categories: crime, sin and poor taste. Crime, as society calls it, refers to serious violation of public order that must be enforced or dealt with punitively and coercively by the police, the courts and correctional policies. The act like rape, murder, arson, robbery, larceny, burglary and assault are labeled as crime. However, other crimes may have different views on the severity of the various segments of society. They may become crimes because the majority members of society believe they are particularly aggressive or threatening. Assaultive conduct is only a categories of crime. The so-called “white-collar crime”, although non-violent, is basically an attack on legal property arrangements of society. For example, acts like tax fraud, stock manipulations, commercial bribery, misrepresentation in advertising and salesmanship. Many of the behaviors are considered sin by various religious groups, so their followers try to restrain this behavior and may believe that all others should also exercise restraint. Sin refers to behavior that were originally prohibited by mainstream religion and may have incorporated into secular law at different times. For example, drug use, obscenity, prostitution, gambling, drunkness and others. For example, alcohol consumption is legal almost all around the world, but it may cause a lot of accidents. Therefore, drinking can be handled either through criminal sanctions or through non-punitively method, although our current non-punitively methods reduce adverse side effects in the form of law enforcement difficulties and police corruption. Alcoholism is still a huge problem, and public attitudes about this have not yet been reflected. Deviant behavior that are considered as poor taste involve actions that may be disapproved, but is not severe to the level that punished by law. The behavior fall in this category such as strange dress patterns, unpopular political symbols or even public sexual practices. Smith and Pollack use excellent examples to point out that although a small classification of acts are inherently deviant, there are many other acts that are only defined as such relative to their context. In my opinion, tension relieve is the main cause of many deviant conduct. Therefore, in dealing with the deviance, the society must first look at what the pervert tried to tell us through his behavior, the society must first look at what the pervert tried to tell us through his behavior. If he can provide him with other ways of relieving stress, he will be persuaded to obey. If he is not complaint, his conduct is violent, and we must bind him, if he is non-complaint and non-violent, we should let him alone.

Lastly, in the essay of “Culture, Crime and Cultural Criminology” which discussed by Jeff Ferrell explores the common denominator between culture and criminal behavior in contemporary social life. Cultural criminology is a theory approach to study crime. Its purpose is to understand crime under context of culture dynamics and the controversial meaning. It consider crime and control institutions as cultural artifacts. It also aims to understand the daily realities of a world of extreme inequality and injustice and to emphasize the way in which power is exercised and resisted in the formulation of rules, in violation of the interaction between rules and representatives. Therefore, it is believed that crime and crime control are determined by the meaning given by culture. For example, although many people use marijuana, it is still a sign of opposition and cultural differences because of the failure of recognize the existence of a different cannabis culture. Specifically, cultural criminology studies the stylized frameworks and empirical dynamics of illicit subcultures, the symbolic conviction of popular culture forms, and the mediation of crime and crime control issues. In addition, the emerging areas of investigation in cultural criminology include the development of situational media and crime audience; the media and police culture; the relationships between crime, crime control and cultural space; and the collective emotions that shape the meaning of crime. There is a research stated that symbolism and style not only shape subculture of crime, but also interweave with the broader social and legal relations in which these subcultures live. A cultural criminology must consider not only the dynamics of criminal subcultures, but also must consider the dynamics of mass media. It is worth noting that the conviction of popular culture is not only a politicized attack on a particular media form such as pop music but also a form of media. Over the past 50 years, popular music has provided us with many examples of cultural criminalization, such as punk in the 1970s. In every cases, as cultural criminologists, we study not only images, but images of images, an infinite hall of mediated mirrors. In addition to overcatering to certain types of crime, cultural criminology is more often carried out by men. It agrees with a specific cultural ideal, that is, the cultural ideal of male activities, which is found in marginal work or subcultural activities in which men are the main actors. Cultural criminology has also neglected the harsh economic analysis of subjective or narrow cultural concerns.

In conclusion, deviant and crime are labeled by the society, which is the social constructed. The behavior as deviant is different in various society, culture and also various over time. These deviances and crimes may be a positive function to society as Emile Durkheim said. As mentioned above, deviant can be divided into three categories, which is crime, sin and poor taste. The severity of these three categories is decreasing respectively. The criminal behavior has also a significant relationship with the culture. The media plays a important role in arise these criminal behavior as well.

Reference

1. Crossman, A. (2018). An Overview of Labeling Theory. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/labeling-theory-3026627